


The Little Pieces of You

by Unknown_Entry



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: And why in-fact he he know anything about it at all, Established Relationship, Fluff, I've never written this much fluff before, M/M, SO MUCH FLUFF, Sherlock contemplates the Solar System, Winter fic, a bit - Freeform, all these useless pieces of information, memory and mindpalaces, not quite a christmas fic but in response to my feelings of christmas and winter holiday nostalgia, send help, they're adding up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-24
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-08-28 13:45:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16724532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unknown_Entry/pseuds/Unknown_Entry
Summary: Sherlock contemplates the universe and the odd little pieces of information he's learned about it along the way.





	The Little Pieces of You

**Author's Note:**

> An idea that struck me, out of the blue, in response to that Sherlock episode where he comments on deleting his memory of the solar system. Or my memory of it at least. ;P I haven’t watched the series in years, and likewise, it’s been a few since I even read any fanfic on it. And of course, this is also my first ever Johnlock self-written fic. :Oc
> 
> Yes. This was literally out of the blue. :P
> 
> Thusly, ignore any inaccuracies henceforth. Just going with my gut feelings on this one. ;) Only a drabble anyhow, (for my standards at least). :P Oh, kind of an AU? Maybe? This is not a piece to justify how Johnlock happened in canon, or where canon may have diverged. Pff. I’m for here, for the fluff not a fully referenced essay. They are destined in all universes regardless; when is up to how obtuse John is being. ;)
> 
> Likewise, this is inspired mostly by BBC’s Sherlock, but the characters are at my liberty. I hope you enjoy. ;)
> 
> Not Beta Read.
> 
>  
> 
> _(PS, in response to any followers of my other "fic" here: the next update, it's coming. RL just busy again and bit of a writer's block. Consider this an exercise in fluff writing, because that's what's coming next my friends. Soon guys, SOON! XD)_

**. . .**

It was a cold winter’s night sometime in the beginning of January or late December. 

Frost caressed the windowsill, begging to be let in from the dark streetscape beyond. A violin sat abandoned on the inside sill, taunting the frost with its silence. 

The air was crisp and cool inside the ruffled little apartment. 

The room sat quiet and unmoving.

All of its equally unmoving inhabitants were damp with the cool air that had somehow been protected, from the frost outside, by that single pane of glass. Or perhaps the moisture in the air was from some of the frost itself that had successfully invaded the tiny apartment, only to cool and lose its form with exposure to the mediocrely warmer air.

Such is perspective.

Outside the moon shone bright, and pinpricks of stars had somehow found their way through the smog of a polluted city.

Their gaze illuminated a frozen landscape of empty streets and blackened windows below. 

White ice clung to the edges of the dark, creating seemingly wrong looking illusions of where the highlights would be in a correctly painted street. 

As was usual for an English winter, there were no signs of snow below, but the frost fought valiantly in its quest to coat all the land in pure white, anyway. 

The soft winter night was only occasionally interrupted: by the sharp, neon lights, of a passing car or the slow-walking form of a lonely pedestrian gazing down into their compact, glowing devices. But soon the would light creep out from its hiding place and enrapture the city once again. 

However, it may not have been winter at all. For all that Sherlock knew, it could also be as late in the year, as February or even early March. Who was to say this was not simply an errant weather pattern?

An updated knowledge of the exact date wasn’t the kind thing that mattered to someone such as himself, outside of cases which involved an active serial killer or two. (And even then it was just because people wouldn’t stop reminding him of it).

Life simply was. And then it wasn’t.

It didn’t follow such meaningless constructs as the rigid time intervals known as months, years or seconds. The Gregorian Calendar system wasn’t even completely accurate, despite the addition of Leap Years here and there. 

The fact that he even knew that much about such an unnecessary thing was annoying in its own right. 

It was unfortunately part of a growing list of things that he knew but hadn’t quite figured out yet how to categorize.

Like the perfect temperature and dilution of leaves for a second cup of tea that he would never drink.

Or the perfect brand of clothes softener that wouldn’t itch skin that wasn't his.

Or the ideal places that things should be put so as not to trip invaders of his space, or give them “heart attacks” when opening fridges or cupboard doors.

Or even the simple yet unnecessary - because of its absolute obscurity - factual tidbit that the Earth was in fact round and revolved around a burning mass of energy, that in layman's terms was, called the sun. 

Knowledge of why the weather differentiated depending on where you were standing on the globe, did little impact his life in England as a consulting detective. Not even the sun could explain away London’s volatile and often abysmal weather.

Miscellaneous facts and unproven opinions were now littered through his mind, with no end in sight.

It distressed him vaguely, though not as much as it once might have, a few cycles of life ago. (He was actively refusing to call them years now, so maybe it also made him feel a little petty).

He knew on some level that people weren’t as conscious of the bank of knowledge they had at their disposal, just behind their eyes, as he was of his own. They just lived and slept and learned what they learned, and didn’t what they didn’t. 

They often unknowingly saved small unimportant memories over the ones they would have thought of as having value to them. 

They kept their knowledge unorganised and cluttered, out of sync and uncategorised, so that it slowed them down and muddied the vision of their memories when they tried to bring them forth. 

Or made it harder to connect the dots when those memories were not labelled and colour-coded in their neat little boxes.

He also knew it was this aspect of himself that made the people around call him a genius, when the information he had been fed was not so dissimilar to what they had during their own lifetimes and experiences. 

Sometimes solving the cases he did felt so stupid and boring, simply because he knew that if he hired someone to describe outloud all that could be seen around them, almost anyone with half a brain would be able to solve it as if it was a light hearted detective novel.

(Perhaps that was why John’s online journals were so popular. They let people into the “nitty gritties” of what it took to actually solve a case. Allowed the viewer a chance to solve it themselves, while being spoon fed the necessary details).

The thing with this newfound clutter was that it wasn’t a simple matter of hoovering it up or brushing it aside.

It invaded every aspect of his life, both between jobs and during them. 

For instance, many aspects of this clutter could be pinned down to one person, a sort of pseudo category if you will. But then that one person also often hopped around in his mind  back and forth between all areas of his life, job and domestic, carefree and careless - leaving pieces of themselves erratically behind, like a whirlwind dancing about in his space.

And he couldn’t very well delete them, even the ones that wouldn’t be missed, such as the supposed origin of the sun and it’s components, because they were already too embedded in his memory to be removed without disturbing the other things that were there.

You see, though, as he once remembers saying the the man himself, that he knows he must have deleted the existence of the sun and the status of the rounded Earth that orbits it, a few times before, that wasn’t precisely accurate. 

It was more precise to say that he didn’t actively add the knowledge to his bank of memories in the first place.

The first minute or so of observation of an object or event, also know as short term memory, exists solely outside the realm of permanent meaning: short and fleeting existences. 

Sherlock often uses that time to analysis the validity any of any of those new pieces of information; to discard the useless ones and to properly label the potentially viable ones - to put them in their right place, hidden away from thought within endless and endless rows mind generated filing cabinets, that can both be shut easily away and found on a whim right where he left them. 

This over-analysation of the everyday moment, he knows, are likewise the bare bones of why many people call him a robot or distant. Ironic due to the fact that it’s in response to his active recording and processing of all the things around him at once. 

That and the fact that to some people it seems as if he is ignoring them or not listening, when it’s more that he has listened and deemed some of their information unimportant enough to disregard on sight. 

It also makes people not think he cares for things somehow, because he can identify traces of aconite through taste and list off the many different compositions of blood he’s come across, but not someone’s birthday or their favourite colour, like they are connected to meaning someway. 

Of course there have been cracks in his life, where pieces he has not wanted to contend with have fallen through - he is not in fact a robot after all - but without their labels or their set place in his mind palace, they quickly and quietly fade before he even remembers that they got through in the first place, (only having appeared there in his mind, either because of idleness or the affects of something emotionally draining and distracting in his life).

But these details are not fading.

Even without a perfect place to be stored.

Or beautiful labels to keep them organised.

They just are. 

And Sherlock still doesn’t know what to do with that. To do with them.

These soft fleeting things that serve no greater purpose other than just to be there. To comfort. To exist.

The feeling of being bundled up in front of a fire with someone’s heat beside you.

The sounds of a thousand different laughs over a time indistinct yet so long, it’s hard to recall a memory without them, to surface, sometimes.

The harsh scent of tobacco and the calming aroma of tea somehow living side by side in harmony. 

The knowledge that the thing which gives the bright moon its form in the sky, is simply the reflection of that same ball of fire that makes the darkness go away, day after day.

The absurd idea that the little specks of light are the same if not more powerful versions of that entity, that are just so very far away that they can hardly cast a shadow on their own here.

Behind him he hears a bedroom door open and the shuffling sound of bare feet across first wood floor and then carpet.

“Ah, Ah. Bloody hell, it’s  _ freezing _ out here. Why didn’t you turn on the heater if you were going to be up this long, or even throw some coal in the fire, I am  _ not  _ nursing you through the flu just because you were stupid enough to  _ freeze  _ yourself to death.”

The voice in question punctuates this harsh statement by proceeding to wrap themselves around him from behind, hands trying valiantly to bundle him up with the procured quilt dangling around their own shoulders. 

“Jeez, is there any heat left in you? It’s like trying to hug a tall, lanky icicle.” Sherlock can feel him rubbing his hands up in down his own arms, in a futile attempt to generate some heat through friction. Sherlock doesn't look up at him yet, but he will in a while.

“What’s got you up so late tonight? It’s- god, it’s after three in the morning. Usually I’d find you up working on something or just playing a few tunes, but I’ve definitely not heard you playing that for while. Granted I fell asleep pretty quick, but still! And we’re between cases- I mean we are right? You haven’t gotten a call about an assassination of the prime minister or something since I’ve last seen you? Man, the stars are pretty tonight though, wouldn’t blame you. Don’t know when the last time I saw a clear night sky was. Maybe that trip to Brighton? Wait- That reminds me of something. Wait right here, I’ll be back.”

John ducks his head underneath the top of the quilt as he extracts himself from Sherlock’s arms, obviously intent on leaving it with him, even though John’s the only one seemingly affected by the coldness if the room. 

“Jesus fuck, it’s so cold. I’m turning on the heater, just you wait and see,” He leans over Sherlock to fasten the covers more securely around him, then gives him a peck on the cheek. “Be back in a jiff.”

Sherlock turns his head slightly, finally disconnecting his vision from the scene outside the window to glance around him. He catches the brief glimpse of dark hair and smooth facial skin before it’s gone from his sight.

Behind him he hears the sound of hurried movements and harshly whispered curses. There is the hum of the boiler starting up, the fizzle of a kettle being turned on, rustle of some extra layers of clothing being donned and the crinkle of brittle paper in hands fidgeting within the cold. 

Before long the sounds get closer again and then a hand is placed over his eyes.

“What are you doing,” he deadpans. 

“Oh, what. The great and powerful Sherlock Holmes can’t figure out this simple conundrum?”

He pauses for a moment before answering. “You’re giving me a present. Let me rephrase, why are you doing this?”

“What, I can’t give you things for no reason?”

“You pre-wrapped it. And also thought of it after noticing the time. Is there an anniversary or something I’m not aware of? I feel like Christmas wasn’t that long ago.”

“You’re hopeless, do you know that?” John takes his hand away. “Happy Birthday Sherlock.”

It’s about a foot long and cylindrical in shape, wrapped in shiny, generic wrapping paper that obnoxiously proclaims “Happy Birthday!” in rows of bright orange font, over and over. He can see it’s got a hefty weight it: both by how John’s muscles are holding it with his two hands before him and by how his elbows are digging into Sherlock's shoulders. 

“A telescope,” Sherlock responds slowly. “Really.”

John huffs out an almost-sigh at that.

“Well, yeah, okay, it was originally meant to be a bit of a joke. But seriously, any and all reminders of our planet’s  _ circular status, _ ” he emphasises pointedly, “are extremely serious. I will not sit by and allow you to become a Flat Earther out of ignorance. It’s non-negotiable.”

He punctuates this statement by placing the still wrapped telescope, by the still silent violin, with a quiet clack and then wrapping his arms back around Sherlock, except on top of the blanket this time. 

“It’s not your only present, don’t you worry. We’re also going out for dinner with everyone later, so do your best to act at least vaguely surprised and marginally hospitable.” 

He gives Sherlock another kiss on the cheek, fingers twisting idly at the edges of the fabric, obviously building up to something. Sherlock silently watches them move, lulled somewhat by their rhythm.

“Yeah, but then I came in here only to find you gazing up at the night sky like a romantic. Seemed fitting. I’m actually sorry it’s not a better quality one, now that I have a feeling it won’t just be sitting in a drawer somewhere before it’s accidentally thrown out one day. What are you thinking in there?”

Sherlock doesn’t answer straight away, just absorbing it all, quietly. John waits without hurry, sensing an answer coming.

“Just. . about bits and pieces.”

“How outstandingly vague,” John replies. Sherlock can hear the fond smile on his face. 

“Okay, well as riveting as all these little bits and pieces of starlight are,” he says after a while, when it becomes apparent they Sherlock is done, for now. “We actually have to get some sleep. We don’t have to get up too early in the morning, which is good, but there is no way you can enjoy your birthday with no sleep. I don’t care how many days you say you can function without it. I’ve seen you during such stretches, and let me tell you, there is more  _ ction _ than  _ fun _ in your demeanor on those days.” He starts to tug on Sherlock’s shoulders, urging him to rise. “C’mon, before I have to boil the kettle again. A cup of that Night Blend you like and then straight to bed.”

Before he lets John sweep him away, he looks at the stars on more time, and starts to label the images behind this memory.

He doesn’t use the usual ones, like  _ blood _ ,  _ weapon _ ,  _ background details  _ or  _ physical markers. _

Instead he uses abstract things like  _ birthday _ ,  _ warmth _ ,  _ moonlight  _ and  _ John.  _

And then he looks up into John’s face to see him smiling down at him, easy and slow. He’s sure John’s has more wrinkles around his eyes than when they first met, even though there are many small details that he did not spend the time cataloguing or remembering during those first few months. 

What matters is that he’s remembering now.

Soon he will stand up and they will go have their tea. John will serve it up for him, just as Sherlock likes it, even though they both like tea at different strengths with different additives. 

They will gather up their empty mugs and leave them sink for later. They then will shuffle off the bed together, maybe hand in hand, maybe just with their shoulders touching. 

John will fluff up the pillows and they’ll settle down for the night.

Sherlock will lie on his back, with one arm around John’s squirming form: somehow, somewhere. John will eventually settle his short, stocky and sprawling body over him in a twisted shape that will not look conducive to a good night's sleep at all. 

Yet somehow, John will be out and snoring softly within twenty minutes or so. Sherlock will be awake for longer, but soon the gentle heat and periodic beat of his little snorts, will coax him into nodding off eventually as well.

They’ll wake up late and John will fix them breakfast. Sherlock will follow along with whatever he has planned, a whirlwind of odd, soft experiences. 

New memories will be formed, marked up in an array of pastels and gentle suggestions of colour. Distinguishable from the rest, by not their physicality or purpose, but by the feelings they embody. The softness they embrace.

Then in the evening John will drag him to wherever their ragtag team of informants are hiding, people John is somehow convincing him to call friends.

The housekeeper. The forensic scientist. The spy. The detective inspector. The politician.

Martha Hudson. Molly Hooper. Mary Morston. Greg Lestrade. Brother, Mycroft.

And they’ll celebrate some useless marker of time that Sherlock has never cared for or remembered on his own for anyone else. 

He’s spent thirty odd years ignoring these social traditions and meaningless rituals, it’s not something he can reprogram now. 

But he also knows that these are ques and rituals that John understands well enough, and that John understands  _ him _ well enough, that he will keep Sherlock in check and up to date with what is expected of him. 

(Just like how he eventually figured out, that instead of complaining when Sherlock missed an anniversary, and event or even John’s own Birthday, if John warned him within a week of advance, he would surely receive something of worth).

But now, Sherlock gazes up into the soft metallic glow of his eyes, and just breathes. 

John’s arms are resting on his shoulders again, soft and lax. His smile has softened out some, but his eyes are still shining with mirth and his crows feet are still wrinkling with emotion.

“You back with me, Sher?” He intones into the quiet. 

At Sherlock’s small nod, he tugs at his body once again, this time successfully getting Sherlock to rise and tower over him. 

“C’mon, I’ll put the kettle on again and then we can head to bed. I’m exhausted just looking at you.”

John makes to move out of the embrace and towards the kitchen, but Sherlock snags his arm first, halting.

“Wait.” He says. “I-I Just-.” He looks to the sill, to the carefully wrapped metal telescope and the now hazy night sky, and back. “I simply want to say- That is- This means- Ahem. Thank you John, and I-. . I. .”

His eventually interrupted in this sordid display of inelegance and unintelligibility, by coarse hands bracketing his face and making him look up from where his eyes had diverted to the floor. Like a schoolboy confessing, badly, to their school crush: how embarrassing.

“I love you too, Sher,” he says, eyes reflecting the starlight. “So much. This really is no bother. Anytime, sweetheart.” He winks obnoxiously at this.

Sherlock huffs in exasperation, before leaning down to give him a small kiss; expressing through actions what his words will not, at the moment.

They separate after a few seconds and John’s smile is back to its blinding wattage, if not also a little smug. 

He links his arm around Sherlock’s, obviously intent on dragging him to the kitchen with him this time. 

“C’mon then Birthday Boy. As riveting as this conversation is, I want to get to sleep in the next century. There’ll be time yet in the morning.”

As he’s dragged out of the moonlit window and into the bright, yellow of the kitchen, he leaves some things behind.

Some reservations. Some doubts. Some worry.

Maybe these remembered moments aren’t as practical or as streamlined as what he usually likes. What he had usually liked.

But they add colour and soft frills to his life, to the mental home he has built in his head.

Instead of another grey, metal filing cabinet containing rows and rows of temperature readouts and chemical compound breakdowns, they add pastel sofas with feather cushions and an embrace to sooth all other thoughts from his mind. 

With the harsh light bulb hanging from above, he is given a floral lampshade to soften down the intensity of his scrutiny.

A simple stationary set is shot full with patterns of rainbows. A heavyset pair of window curtains becomes lace and frills. 

Their addition is distracting at times, but they do not take anything away. 

They just make life just that little much brighter and that little bit more colourful. 

He takes the cup of tea John hands to him, allowing the heat from the mug to warm his hands from where they have emerged from the fluffy duvet.

As he sits on the stool he receives a small kiss on the forehead before John turns away to get his own mug.

Sherlock now stares down at the one in own hands, a rainbow coloured austrocity, with the organic chemistry compound for catechin printed upon it, with white hexagons and text; a flavonoid most commonly found in things like cocoa and tea. 

He takes a sip, allowing its warmth to sooth him from the inside, and soon he feels his thoughts start to slow with the promise of sleep.

It does not feel as foreboding as it once aught have.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Me in real time, while writing this fic:** Man, I could totally make this a New Years fic. Wait. When is Sherlock’s birthday? Please be a winter baby, please be a winter baby. January 6th!? Hell yes! It be fate. :Oc Let the fluff commence. B^)


End file.
